Arbeitsbereich: Sociology

Christian Koß is research associate at the department of Social Sciences at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. He holds a bachelor‘s degree in Sociology and a master‘s degree in Social Research from the University of Bremen. Before moving to the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, he was employed at the University of Stuttgart in the third-party funded project ‚ABD – Aufbruch, Abbruch oder Durchbruch?  Einflussfaktoren auf wissenschaftliche Karriereverläufe in den Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften‘ Currently, he is coordinating the third-party funded project ‘Discourse Data for Policy’ together with colleagues at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

For his dissertation, Christian Koß works in the field of computational social science and explores artificial intelligence methods for the analysis of political discourse and dynamics. His research focuses on network analysis and machine learning.

Dr. Stefanie Lütters is a research assistant at DIID. In her phD thesis she analyzed the influence of social networks on political participation in contrasting social spaces. Previously, she studied Social Sciences at the University of Cologne (B.Sc.) and at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (M.A.).

Her research interests are in political sociology, especially in the areas of social and political inequality, social capital, and the impact of digitalization on political participation.

Bettina Ülpenich is research assistant at the Chair of Sociology I and II of the Institute of Social Sciences at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. After having graduated in graphic design technology and economics & politics she studied sociology at the University of Wuppertal and finished in 2013 with a master degree. Her PhD thesis dealt with the construction of categories of persons in the course of the refugee crises.

Her research interests are the sociology of categorization, gender studies and trends in higher education.

Dr. Johannes Krause is research assistant at the Chair of Sociology II since 2011. He studied Social Sciences at the University of Cologne and completed a part-time Master of Business Administration in 2019.

His research interests are physical attractiveness and the (un-)fair determinants of educational trajectories.

Anna Gaßner is a research assistant at the Chair of Sociology II of the Institute of Social Sciences at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. She studied Political Science (after Wolfgang Abendroth) at the Philipps-Universität Marburg (B.A.) and at the University of Cologne (M.A.). Her dissertation dealt with political right-wing participation and the mobilisation potential of extremist actors.

Her research focuses on gender studies as well as on political attitudes and political behaviour in the field of political sociology. One research interest is the connection between technology, digitalisation and gender. Specifically, how advancing digitalisation reinforces and produces gender inequalities.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ulf Tranow is assistant professor of Sociology at the Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf since 2013.

His research interests include sociological theories of action, social mechanisms of normative integration as well as problems of collective good and their solutions. At DIID, he is interested in the social, societal and institutional conditions for building political confidence in conflicting online deliberation processes.

Prof. Dr. Michael Baurmann is a Senior Professor for Sociology at the University of Duesseldorf. He studied sociology, philosophy and law. He has been visiting professor in Australia (ANU), Mexico (ITAM) and the United States (NYU) and was senior research fellow at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg in Greifswald in 2009 and 2013. He is the current Managing Director of the DIID.

His main research interests are general theory of sociology, rational choice theory, social epistemology, and the epistemic dimensions of democracy. At the DIID he is interested in inovative systems for online deliberation and argumentation.